Mobile data is increasing at a compound annual rate of far more than 100% as a result of an increasing level of penetration of data-intensive devices and an increasing level of usage per device. These devices are getting smarter due to improved user interfaces, vastly increased numbers of applications, faster processors, and improved radio access technologies, therefore are consuming increasing amounts of data.
Data volumes are growing at a rate that exceeds operators' ability to grow capacity. Capacity growth typically comes from growth in the number of sites, from increased spectrum resources, and from enhancements in radio access technology.
Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology, standardized by the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), has emerged as the next generation wireless technology that will lead the growth of mobile broadband services in the next decade. Its adoption by service providers around the world has the potential to generate economies of scale unprecedented by any previous generation of wireless networking technology as it becomes the universal 4G/5G mobile platform used by all service providers.
LTE is critical to delivering the lower cost per bit, higher bandwidth, and subscriber experience needed to address the challenges of mobile broadband. It has the potential to transform how subscribers and machines use applications and content distributed over mobile and converged networks. The effect will be to increase the value of these networks and create favorable conditions for the continued mass market adoption of mobile broadband services.
The reality is that, we have reached a point where an increase in number of conventional sites and available spectrum can no longer keep up with the explosion in demand for mobile data capacity—actually falling short by an entire order of magnitude in recent years. What other options exist? One possibility is architectural innovation. What if the definition of a “cell site” were radically changed, in such a way that the number of “sites” dramatically increased and the cost per unit of capacity (after adjusting for the inevitable lower utilization of smaller sites) significantly decreased?
This capacity gap drives deployment of at least one order-of-magnitude more “small cells”—making up for the difference by means of spectrum re-use. In order to provide consistent capacity density across a mobile service area, these deployments need to take place in a more “distributed” manner—forcing operators to expand beyond the current foot-print for the deployment of more mobile broadband radios. In many cases, operators need to acquire more and new types of cell locations to deploy data-centric wireless broadband service networks. These cell locations then determine the required type of “small cell” equipment to build a heterogeneous mobile radio access network.
In next decade, Web-scale IT will be an architectural approach found operating in most of global enterprises, up from less than 10 percent in 2013. Web-scale IT is a pattern of global-class computing that delivers the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting by rethinking positions across several dimensions.
Large cloud services providers such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc., are reinventing the way in which IT services can be delivered. Their capabilities go beyond scale in terms of sheer size to also include scale as it pertains to speed and agility. If enterprises want to keep pace, then they need to emulate the architectures, processes and practices of these exemplary cloud providers.
Web-scale IT looks to change the IT value chain in a systemic fashion. Data centers are designed with an industrial engineering perspective that looks for every opportunity to reduce cost and waste. Web-oriented architectures allow developers to build very flexible and resilient systems that recover from failure more quickly.
Web-scale IT refers to a global-class of computing or architectural approach used to deliver the capabilities of large cloud service providers within an enterprise IT setting. The approach is to design, build and manage data center infrastructure where capabilities go beyond scale in terms of size to include scale as it pertains to speed and agility. Web-scale IT is simply defined as all the things happening at large cloud service firms, such as Google, Amazon, Netflix, Facebook and others, that enables them to achieve extreme levels of agility and scalability by applying new processes and architectures.
Web-scale IT methodology pertains to designing, deploying and managing infrastructure at any scale and can be packaged in a number of ways to suit diverse requirements and can scale to any size of business or enterprise. It is not a single technology implementation, but rather a set of capabilities of an overall IT system.
A Centralized-Radio Access Network (RAN) architecture, also known as Cloud-RAN or C-RAN, is garnering attention for its ability to meet all of the above needs while supporting mobile fronthaul and backhaul, network self-optimization, self-configuration and self-adaptation through self-organizing network functionality (SON).
The Cloud RAN concept lowers operating expenses and simplifies the deployment process. By centralizing all the active electronics of multiple cell sites, at one location, energy, real-estate and security costs are minimized. The remote radio unit (RRU) can be mounted outdoor or indoor—on poles, sides of buildings or anywhere a power and a broadband connection exist, making installation less costly and easier. The RRU is typically connected using fiber to the Cloud, creating cloud-like radio access network topology. This topology saves costs both during the installation and later in the on-going operation.
One of the essential components of a web-scaled infrastructure is the backhaul between the remote radio head and the cloud RAN. Since the baseband signal processing is performed in the cloud the signal that the backhaul carry between cloud and remote radio unit is baseband samples and control signals. Therefore, the backhaul needs to support very high bandwidth with very low loss of packets, and acceptable latency.
This application discloses a novel cloud architecture which allows for pooling the cloud RAN recourses to optimize both OPEX and CAPEX.
The drawings referred to in this description should be understood as not being drawn to scale except if specifically noted.